The Minority in Parliament has denied allegations that it paid or attempted to coach some Ghanaian evacuees from South Africa to speak against the government over the handling of their repatriation and related allowances.
Addressing the press on Tuesday, October 27, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, said the Minority had not paid or persuaded any of the evacuees to make allegations against the government.
His response follows a press conference held by some of the evacuees on Monday, October 26, during which they alleged that some members of the opposition had attempted to coach them to speak against the government.
Mr Jinapor rejected the allegation, insisting that the Minority had not influenced any of the evacuees to speak publicly on the matter.
“Let me place on record that at no point in time did the Minority engage, pay, and/or convince any of these people,” he said.
He explained that some of the evacuees had decided to speak out after learning of discrepancies between the allowances they were allegedly entitled to receive and the amounts they actually received.
The Minority has raised concerns about expenditure on the evacuation exercise, citing alleged duplicate entries, payment records without signatures, missing supporting receipts and claims by some evacuees that they did not receive the amounts recorded against their names.
Mr Jinapor said the concerns remained unresolved despite explanations from the Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, and renewed the Minority’s call for an independent audit of the exercise.
